The Driving Force
by 94stars
Summary: "Do you see your children?" Mann said. "It's okay. They're right there with you." Cooper knew that Mann meant to be comforting, but he sounded anything but. Mann had no family ties or connections to anyone back on Earth. He would never know what it was like to have children. And anyone pretending to know was almost an insult to the very sanctity that it was.


**Author's Note:**

The love Cooper has for Murph in the movie, _Interstellar_ made me cry. It inspired me to write a oneshot, especially regarding this scene.  
I dedicate this one to all parents. Reviews welcome.

* * *

Cooper dragged himself across the frozen landscape.

"You're feeling it, aren't you?"

Cooper retched something painful.

Mann stood, and watched Cooper writhe wildly.

"The survival instinct. That's what drove me. It's what drives all of us, and it's what's gonna save us. I'm gonna save all of us. For you, Cooper."

Mann bowed his head, walking away.

"I'm sorry, I ca… I can't watch you go through this. I'm sorry."

Mann walked and began to tread uphill. He stopped, looking back.

"I thought I could," he gruffed, and then turned once more and left Cooper. "But I can't."

The ammonia-laced air continued to hiss into Cooper's helmet. Cooper clasped a hand over his cracked helmet, hoping to help stop the flow of air from getting in. But it wasn't much help. The searing chill of ammonia went down into his lungs, and stung them with a hard bite.

Cooper flailed. He didn't know what to do.

Mann pressed onward up the hill.

"_I'm here. I'm here for you. Just listen to my voice, Cooper._"

Cooper choked on his own breath. He would have rather taken the dust back on Earth.

"_Cooper… you're not… you're not alone_," Mann said. Cooper looked about madly. His visor was clouded with white and gray fog. It was impossible to breathe without it hurting.

Mann stopped, watching Cooper struggle in some kind of a sad fascination.

"Do you see your children?" Dr. Mann said. "It's okay. They're right there with you."

Cooper knew that Mann meant to be comforting, but he sounded anything but. Mann had no family ties or connections to anyone back on Earth. He would never know what it was like to have children. And anyone pretending to know was almost an insult to the very sanctity that it was.

Therefore, his tone almost felt like mockery.

Mann scaled the snowy hill.

"Did Professor Brand tell you that poem before you left?"

Cooper gagged. He crawled, pulling himself across the icy ground. He looked around… and then stopped. His eyes then met with something in the snow.

In the howling, blustery wind, he saw his communications chip.

"_Do you remember?_" Mann said.

"_Do not go gentle_

_Into that good night_

_Old age… should burn… and rave at close of day_

_Rage… rage against the dying of the light_."

* * *

Two children who were travelling elsewhere sat in the back of a flatbed truck. They watched Murph drive by on the road.

Murph couldn't help but stare. They were no more than Coop's age. They looked tired. Tired of putting up with this worldwide battle that they had no choice but to be in.

Murph drove past them, and the children fell past behind the Jeep window.

Murphy's face twitched.

Something wasn't right.

Somewhere… something nagged at her. She felt a connection with it. It was a feeling she couldn't explain.

It felt like something from far away… was trying to get to her. Refusing to give up. A driving force to survive.

Murph slammed on the brakes. Getty's face broke into confusion next to her. The car swirled around on the road.

* * *

That same driving force flooded everything that Cooper was. His mind raced about the mission.

An overwhelming temptation to say no to death. To resist the close of day. To fight the dying of the light.

Cooper used his elbows to haul himself across the ground.

_Your daughter's generation…_

Cooper crawled.

…_Will be the last to survive on Earth_.

Cooper crawled harder.

_Love is the one thing… t__hat transcends time and space._

Cooper found strength ring through him.

Love.

_I'm coming back_.

Overwhelming love.

_I'm coming back._

His communications chip lay before him. Cooper ripped off his glove, flinging it elsewhere.

Piercing cold fire stung his hand.

Cooper grabbed his communications chip in the snow. His fingers tried to hold it the right way. He popped it in the side of his head, and he screamed.

"Brand! Brand! Help! Help!"

"_Cooper?_"

She had heard him. Cooper rolled over on his side, gasping out words.

"No air… ammonia…"

"_Cooper, Cooper, hang on, we're coming._"

Cooper could then hear Amelia bark orders to CASE in the background. He had to wait. Cooper lay on his back. His eyes rolled up at the bright sky. He closed them.

All he could hear was Amelia Brand's voice trying to calm him down in the side of his ear.

"_Cooper… coming… hang in there, don't talk… try and breathe… little as possible…_"

He only heard parts of her.

Cooper shut his eyes tighter, wishing that they were here now. He saw his children. He saw Tom. He saw the little farm house, and the corn that surrounded it. He saw Murph.

Murph.

She burned through his mind, and the very last moments he spent together with her came back.

With each passing heartbeat that slammed through his veins, Murph reigned though all comprehensible thought. Across galaxies, what he felt for her lived, and roared through every conceivable creation with enough force to put all the stars to shame.

"_We're coming… coming… come on, we have to go faster…_" Brand said.

Cooper laid there in wait, and stared up at this foreign planet's sky. It was white, releasing snowflakes that whisked away in the bitter wind.

Cooper wondered if she even knew. If she knew how badly he wanted to get to her.

Cooper closed his eyes, and listened to his steadily decreasing heartbeat. With each passing throb, the thought of Murph gained momentum. He remembered when he gave her the wrist watch. He remembered the way Murph had turned at him. The way she looked so lost about why her father would leave her to go someplace that no man had ever comprehended to go before... it was a look that had broke something in Cooper for the rest of his life.

However much longer that would be.

"_Come on!_" Brand ordered through his earpiece.

Cooper wasn't sure if he could wait that much longer. His lungs were hard and heavy. He couldn't stop thinking about the look on his daughter's face. He remembered how Murph and had thrown the watch across her bedroom in a fury.

She was mad only because she loved him so much. And she had held a twenty-three year long grudge against him to show him how much she cared.

"_Come on, faster, faster, FASTER!_" Brand yelled, but Cooper couldn't hear her. His eyelid slipped closed. He drifted, somewhere among the snowflakes, dying. Amelia's voice was too far away somewhere.

This couldn't happen now.

He had promises to keep.


End file.
